Hideo Kojima
| image = Hideo Kojima 20100702 Japan Expo 1.jpg | caption = Kojima at Japan Expo 2010 in Paris, France | years_active = 1986–present | birth_date = | birth_place = Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan | nationality = Japanese | known_for = | notable_works = Metal Gear series Snatcher Policenauts | occupation = Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment, director of Kojima Productions, screenwriter, video game designer, game director, game producer | website = Hideo Kojima's Blog }} is a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011. His previous positions include being vice president of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan. He is the creator and director of a number of successful video games, including the Metal Gear series of stealth games and the adventure games Snatcher and Policenauts, and he also produced series such as Zone of the Enders and Boktai. Kojima is consistently named by fans and industry experts alike as being one of the most influential and innovative video game directors and writers in the industry. Biography Early life Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1963, Kojima moved to western Japan at the age of three. Kojima has said that early on in his life he often had to deal with death. An unofficial transcription is available on metalgearsolid.org http://web.archive.org/web/20070713075005/http://www.metalgearsolid.org/show_features.php?id=141 When he was little the Kojima family moved to a small city called Shirasaki. Just as quickly, his family soon moved to Kawanishi, Hyōgo in the Kansai region. Kojima has noted that growing up he was a latchkey kid, often having to look after himself when he came home from school. Staying at home by himself in isolation still affects him to this day stating, "whenever I travel and stay at a hotel I put the TV on as soon as I enter the room, just to deal with the feeling of loneliness." Initially wanting to be an artist or illustrator, he was often discouraged by societal norms of Japan which favored finding safe and well paying jobs. He was also discouraged because his uncle was also an artist but suffered from financial difficulties. He eventually started writing short stories and began to send them to Japanese magazines but was never able to get anything published. He cites that his stories were often 400 pages long while most magazines wanted their short stories to be around 100 pages. Eventually he shifted his focus to making films with his friend who had an 8mm camera. Career In an interview on G4's TV series Icons, Kojima describes much of his earlier career and influences for game design. Kojima grew up early in life watching movies with his parents. While studying economics in university, Kojima found himself playing video games during his free time, mainly games on the Famicom. In his fourth year in university, Kojima surprised colleagues by announcing his intentions to join the video game industry, despite initially having ambitions of becoming a film director. He felt a career in video games would be more satisfying. Kojima has cited Shigeru Miyamoto's Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Yuji Horii's The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) as the games that inspired him to make this decision. 1980s Kojima tried joining the game business but was unable to do so at first. His game design ideas were rejected but he never gave up and eventually he was accepted. He joined video game publisher Konami's MSX home computer division in 1986 as a designer and 'planner'. Initially, he was disappointed with his assignment, and desired to work on Nintendo Entertainment System and arcade games instead—Kojima felt the color palette of the system was too restrictive. Kojima's gameplay ideas were often overlooked initially, and due to his lack of familiarity with programming was repeatedly snubbed for his failures in his initial years at Konami. At one point Kojima considered leaving the company, but he hung on. The first game he worked on was Penguin Adventure, the sequel to Antarctic Adventure, as an assistant director. It significantly expanded upon the gameplay of Antarctic Adventure, adding more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings.Penguin Adventure, GameSpot The first game he actually developed was Lost Warld, a platform game starring a masked female wrestler, in . However, the game was ultimately rejected by Kojima's superiors at Konami. Kojima was asked to take over a project, Metal Gear, from a senior associate. Hardware limitations hindered development of the game's combat. Inspired by The Great Escape, Kojima altered the gameplay to focus on a prisoner escaping. It was released in for the MSX2 home computer in Japan and parts of Europe. The game centers around a special forces operative codenamed Solid Snake, who is sent to the fortified state of "Outer Heaven" to stop a nuclear equipped walking tank known as "Metal Gear". Metal Gear is one of the earliest examples of the stealth action game genre, where avoiding encounters from the enemies is emphasized over direct combat. A port of Metal Gear was also released for the Nintendo Entertainment System through Konami's Ultra Games division. Kojima was not directly involved in the production of this version and he has openly criticized some of the changes made in this version. His next project was the graphic adventure game Snatcher, released for the NEC PC-8801 and MSX2 computer platforms in Japan in . The game, influenced by science fiction works such as Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Bubblegum Crisis, is set in a post-apocalyptic world and centers around an amnesiac detective who faces a race of cyborgs (the titular Snatchers) that kill their victims, copy their likeness and assume their place in society. While Kojima and his team wrote the entire story of the game, they were forced to leave out the final act of the game due to time constraints. The game was highly regarded at the time for pushing the boundaries of video game storytelling, cinematic cut scenes, and mature content,Retroactive: Kojima's Productions, 1UP and was praised for its graphics, soundtrack, high quality writing comparable to a novel, voice acting comparable to a film or radio drama, post-apocalyptic setting, light gun shooter segments, and in-game computer database with optional documents that flesh out the game world. The Sega CD version of Snatcher was for a long time the only major visual novel game to be released in America, however, partly due to a Teen rating limiting its accessibility,Kurt Kalata, Snatcher, Hardcore Gaming 101 it only sold a "couple of thousand units", according to Jeremy Blaustein, a member of Snatcher's localization team. 1990s In Kojima was involved in the productions of two MSX2 games: a spinoff of Snatcher titled SD Snatcher; and a sequel to Metal Gear titled Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which further evolved the stealth game genre. The player had more abilities, such as crouching, crawling into hiding spots and air ducts, distracting guards by knocking on surfaces, and using a radar to plan ahead. The enemies had improved AI, including a 45-degree field of vision, the detection of various different noises, being able to move from screen to screen, and a three-phase security alarm. The game also had improved graphics and a complex storyline dealing with themes such as the nature of warfare and nuclear disarmament. SD Snatcher is a role-playing video game which adapts the storyline of the original Snatcher, while featuring its version of the originally planned ending. The characters are depicted in a "super deformed" art style, in contrast to the original game's realistic style. Like the original computer versions of Snatcher, it was only released in Japan. It abandoned random encounters and introduced an innovative first-person turn-based battle system where the player can aim at specific parts of the enemy's body using firearms with limited ammo. Such a battle system has rarely been used since, though similar battle systems based on targeting individual body parts can later be found in Square's Vagrant Story (2000), Bethesda's Fallout 3 (2008), and Nippon Ichi's Last Rebellion (2010).European date fixed for the action / RPG Last Rebellion (Translation), Jeuxvideo.com Due to the success of the original Metal Gear on the NES, Konami decided to create a sequel to the game, Snake's Revenge, without the involvement of Hideo Kojima. During a ride home on the train, Kojima met one of the staff members who worked on the game who asked him if he would create a "true" Metal Gear sequel. As a result Kojima began plans for his own sequel titled: Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. The game was only released in Japan for the MSX2 as one of the last games Konami produced for the computer system. The game would not be released overseas in North American and Europe until its inclusion in 's Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. All of his subsequent projects after Metal Gear 2 were produced primarily for disc-based media, allowing for the inclusion of voice acting in his games. He remade Snatcher in for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM2. An English localization of the game was produced for the Sega CD in North America and Europe in . Kojima was not directly involved in the Sega CD version nor the subsequent PlayStation and Saturn ports released in Japan in . In , Kojima released Policenauts, a film noir/sci-fi-themed adventure game set in a space colony, for the NEC PC-9821. Kojima oversaw the subsequent ports released for the 3DO in ; and the PlayStation and Saturn in , which all featured animated cut-scenes not in the PC-98 release. Despite announcements for an English release in 1996, problems with synching the English dialogue with the cut-scenes stopped its production. An unofficial English translation patch was released to the public at midnight (JST) on August 24, 2009, to coincide with Hideo Kojima's 46th birthday. From 1997 to 1999, he developed the Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series, a trilogy of visual novel adventure games. With the release of Metal Gear Solid (MGS) in for the PlayStation, Kojima became an international celebrity among the video game media. Metal Gear Solid was the first in the Metal Gear series to use 3D graphics and voice acting, which gave a more cinematic experience to the game. MGS was highly regarded for its well-designed gameplay and for its characters and storyline, which featured themes of nuclear proliferation and genetic engineering. 2000s In early 2001, Kojima released the first details of the sequel to Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, for the PlayStation 2. The game's highly detailed graphics, physics, and expanded gameplay quickly made it one of the most anticipated games yet. The game was highly successful and critically acclaimed at release, due to its graphics, gameplay and storyline, which dealt with myriad philosophical themes as specific as memes, censorship, manipulation, patricide, the inherent flaws of democracy and as grandiose as the nature of reality itself. While Metal Gear Solid 2 appealed gamers with the discussion of these, the bewildering maze of dialogue and plot revelation in the final hours of the game, left a sour taste in the mouths of many gamers, who expected the Hollywood-style resolution of its forerunner. After the release of MGS2, Kojima produced the game and anime franchise Zone of the Enders in 2001 to moderate success. In 2003, he produced Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand for the Game Boy Advance. In this, players take the role of a young vampire hunter who uses a solar weapon which is charged by a photometric sensor on the game cartridge (forcing them to play in sunlight). Another team inside Konami (in a collaboration with Silicon Knights) began work on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, a GameCube remake of the first Metal Gear Solid with all the gameplay features of Metal Gear Solid 2 and with cutscenes redirected by action/horror film director Ryuhei Kitamura. It was released in 2004. Afterwards, Kojima also designed and released Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the PlayStation 2. Unlike the previous games in the series, which took place in the near future and focused on indoor locations, the game is set in a Russian forest area during the year 1964, and involves wilderness survival and camouflaging. The North American version was released on November 17, 2004, with the Japanese counterpart following on December 16. The European version was released on March 4, 2005. Critical response to the game was highly favorable. At that time Kojima produced Boktai's sequel, Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django for the Game Boy Advance. Released in summer 2004, it makes more extensive use of the cartridge's sunlight sensor and allows players to combine various new solar weapons. Also released was Metal Gear Acid for the PlayStation Portable handheld. This turn-based game is less action-oriented than the other Metal Gear games and focuses more on strategy. It was released in Japan on December 16, 2004. Its sequel Metal Gear Acid 2 was released on March 21, 2006. Kojima wanted Solid Snake to appear in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Melee, but due to development cycle problems Nintendo was unable to add Snake in. When Super Smash Bros. Brawl was in development, series producer Masahiro Sakurai, contacted Kojima to work Snake into the game. Kojima also worked on Snake's stage for SSBB. Released in June 2008, Kojima co-directed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with Shuyo Murata. Kojima received a lifetime achievement award at the MTV Game Awards 2008 in Germany. In his speech, he said in English, "I have to say, even though I received this award, let me state that I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live." Before E3 2009, Kojima stated interest in working with a western developer. This later turned out to be a collaboration between him and MercurySteam to work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Although he announced that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots would be the last Metal Gear game he would be directly involved in, he announced at E3 2009 that he would return to help on two Metal Gear games: Metal Gear Solid: Rising, as a producer and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as writer, director and producer. When interviewed at Gamescom 2009, Kojima stated that he got more involved with Peace Walker because, "there was a lot of confusion within the team and it didn't proceed as I wanted it to. Therefore I thought that I needed to jump in and do Peace Walker". 2010s Hideo Kojima was at E3 2010 to show off his team's latest project, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, but a report from CVG says the game developer has a "massive PS3 exclusive" to unveil at Tokyo Game Show however nothing to date has been mentioned. He was also seen in Nintendo's 3DS interview video, where he stated he was interested in making a Metal Gear Solid game for the 3DS and wondered what it would be like in 3D. This game ended up being a remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 titled Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D. In late 2011, Metal Gear Solid: Rising was renamed Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance with Platinum Games being involved in developing it alongside Kojima Productions. Nevertheless, Kojima is the game's executive producer and showed interest in working in the game's demo to be featured in June 12. On April 1, 2011, Hideo was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment. He recently stated he is currently working on a new intellectual property with Suda-51, tentatively titled Project S, as well as preparing new projects. On July 8, 2011 Kojima announced that Project S was a radio-show sequel to Snatcher, titled Sdatcher as a reference to the show's producer Suda-51. The show would air on Fridays on Kojima's bi-weekly radio show, starting with show #300 which is scheduled to air in August 2011. In an exclusive E3 video review, Hideo Kojima revealed his new innovative gaming technology labeled as "Transfarring", a portmanteau of the verbs transferring and sharing. This new technology enables gamers to transfer their gaming data from the PS3 to PSP in a quick data transferring process and bring it on the go from home into the outside world. Works ''Metal Gear'' series Metal Gear}} ''Snatcher''/''Policenauts'' games * Snatcher (1988: PC88, MSX2) – writer, director * SD Snatcher (1990: MSX2) – original writer * Snatcher CD-ROMantic (1992: PC-Engine) – writer, director * Policenauts (1994: PC98, 1995: 3DO, 1996: PlayStation, 1996: Saturn) – writer, director * Sdatcher (2011: radio drama) - planner, producer ''Tokimeki Memorial'' series * Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 1: Nijiiro no Seishun (1997: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – planner, producer, drama director * Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 2: Irodori no Love Song (1998: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – planner, producer * Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series Vol. 3: Tabidachi no Uta (1999: PlayStation, Sega Saturn) – executive director ''Zone of the Enders'' series Zone of the Enders (series)}} * Zone of the Enders (2001: PlayStation 2) – producer * Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (2003: PlayStation 2, 2003: Special edition for PlayStation 2) – producer * Zone of the Enders HD Collection (2012: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita) - producer ''Boktai'' series Boktai (series)}} * Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand (2003: Game Boy Advance) – game designer, producer * Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django (2004: Game Boy Advance) – producer * Shin Bokura no Taiyō: Gyakushū no Sabata (2005: Game Boy Advance) – producer * Lunar Knights (2006: Nintendo DS) – producer ''Castlevania'' series Castlevania (series)}} * Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - executive producer Other games * Penguin Adventure (1986: MSX) – assistant director * Lost Warld (1986: MSX, canceled) – writer, director * D2 (1999: Dreamcast) - Thanks * Stock Trading Trainer : Kabutore (2006: Nintendo DS) – producer * Kabushiki Baibai Trainer Kabutore! Next (2007: Nintendo DS) – producer * Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008: Wii) – designer of Shadow Moses Island stage * Twelve Tender Killers (2008: mobile phones) – producer * Gaitame Baibai Trainer: Kabutore FX (2009: Nintendo DS) * Unannounced 5pb. game (2012: TBA) - producer *''Project Ogre'' (TBA: TBA) - Producer Movies * Versus (2000) – cameo (extra) * Azumi (2003) – cameo (extra) Acting roles * Policenauts ( ) – AP Officer No. 2 * Eurasia Express Satsujin Jiken ( ) – Traveler * Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions ( ) – Genola * Internet Pilot Drama Idea Spy 2.5 Daisakusen ( ) - Idea Spy 2.5 * Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots ( ) – Voice of God * Castlevania: Lords of Shadow ( ) - The Chupacabra (JP version). The voice acting for the EN version is credited to Jason Sampson. * Sdatcher (2011) - Little John Influences and mentality Kojima has cited Shigeru Miyamoto's platform game Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Yuji Horii's adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) as the games that inspired him to enter the video game industry. Portopia Serial Murder Case, a murder mystery adventure game, was an important influence because, according to Kojima, it had "mystery, a 3D dungeon, humor, and a proper background and explanation of why the murderer committed the crime. That is why there was drama in this game. My encountering this game expanded the potential of video games in my mind." Portopia had an influence on his early works, including Metal Gear and particularly Snatcher. (Reprinted at ) Kojima's love of film is noticeable in his games where he pays homage through his stories and characters, sometimes to the point of pastiche, as in Snatcher. Snatcher is inspired by many science fiction movies, particularly from the eighties, including Blade Runner, Akira, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Terminator. Examples of influence by films include Solid Snake's codename (named after Snake Plissken from Escape from New York), Snake's alias in MGS2: Pliskin (in reference to the last name of Snake Plissken from the Escape movies), Snake's real name (Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey),The Making of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty DVD packaged with European version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Snake's trademark bandana (The Deer Hunter ). Movies would also have influence on other aspects of his games. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich (named after HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey and film director Roland Emmerich), Sniper Wolf shooting Meryl in Metal Gear Solid (Full Metal Jacket), Psycho Mantis (inspired from the film The Fury) and the whole Metal Gear stealth concept (The Great Escape and The Guns of Navarone ). James Bond also had a large influence on the Metal Gear series, with Metal Gear Solid 3 having a James Bond-like introduction sequence. He also received inspiration from anime. His early works, particularly the cyberpunk adventure game Snatcher (which uses anime-style art), were influenced by cyberpunk anime, most notably Akira (mentioned above). In a recent interview, he mentioned that his Zone of the Enders series was inspired by mecha/robot anime, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. Mecha anime were also an inspiration for the Metal Gear series, which features mecha robots, such as Metal Gear REX and Metal Gear RAY; this is referenced in Metal Gear Solid, where Otacon mentions mecha anime as an influence on his Metal Gear REX designs. In regards to storyline development and interaction with them, he said: }} In terms of reverse influence on film, his work on the storylines of the Metal Gear series was cited as an influence by screenwriter David Hayter, the voice actor for Solid Snake, on his screenwriting for Hollywood films. He stated that "Kojima and I have different styles," "but I've certainly learned things from him, especially about ambiguity and telling a story without giving all the answers." In an interview Kojima gave to the Metal Gear Solid Official Mission Handbook in 1998, he listed these people as his all-time favorite filmmakers: Luc Besson, Jean Cocteau, Krzysztof Kieślowski, David Lynch, Danny Boyle, James Cameron, John Carpenter, Jan Kounen, Dario Argento, George A. Romero, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo, Robert Rodriguez, Akira Kurosawa, Masayuki Suo, and Joji Iida. Awards and accolades Newsweek named Hideo Kojima as one of the top ten people of 2002. In 2008, Next-Gen placed him seventh in their list of "Hot 100 Developers 2008." In 2009, IGN placed him sixth in their list of top game creators of all time. At the 2008 MTV Game Awards, Hideo was given the award show's first Lifetime Achievement Award for a game designer and was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. References External links * Kojima Productions * Hideo Kojima's blog ** Official English translation ** A summary of his blog in English as of 9/27/05 (by IGN) * * * Category:1963 births Category:Japanese video game designers Category:Konami people Category:Living people Category:People from Tokyo Category:Video game designers Category:Video game directors Category:Video game producers Category:Video game writers Category:Video game developers Category:Hideo Kojima